


Protectors

by RoryCantSleep



Series: How Could You Forget Me? [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: High School, Light Angst, M/M, a story of why lance hates keith so much, a year before they found voltron, before all the voltron happened, idk how to tag
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-30
Updated: 2016-08-25
Packaged: 2018-07-27 15:20:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7623850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoryCantSleep/pseuds/RoryCantSleep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you're too afraid to confide in those you know to well, try someone you don't know at all. No biased opinion, no judgement, but be careful cause you just might fall for them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first Voltron/Klance fanfic, congrats to me for starting a new fic when I have three others that I never finished, but I know it's not going to be a long one because I pretty much have everything planned out, just have to write it and yeah it's part of a series but the only thing after this story is going to be a oneshot. also everyone in this story is kinda OOC for a fair warning. I hope you all enjoy this and any criticism is welcomed(As long as you're not mean about it) Thanks for reading!

You remember awhile back, maybe you were six, maybe you were seven; you can’t actually pinpoint an exact age because everything before the age of 14 blurs together for some reason but that’s beside the point, you remember when your mom had sat you on her lap, fresh tears rolling down her face as she told you that you needed to be strong. You didn’t know what she had meant at the time, just that earlier in the day was the last time that you had ever seen your father; what you did know however, was that he had hurt your mom, and that bastard would have to take on the entire universe before he got through you to hurt her again because you’d always learned that you must protect the ones you care about.

~*~

You can’t help but think that math class is the last place you need to be remembering this. You also can’t help but wonder if it’d had been more painful to have seen him turn his back and walk away rather than try to imagine it happening. The thoughts were interrupted by something soft hitting your head than dropping on your desk. You look to your right to see your best friend sitting next to you with a somewhat concerned look on his face. You already have a feeling as to what is written on the paper since this had become a routine in your guys’ day. You shrug in answer to the written question of ‘Are you okay?’ Quite frankly, you are not okay but you are not about to dump this load on the poor guy you had already too much on his plate, four AP exams in a row this week, two next week, projects due in five out of his eight classes and he’s already applying to multiple engineering projects that take place after next year, his last year.

You’d like to say you have no idea as to why this memory has chosen ten years later to resurge but that’d be lying. You’re not going to lie and say that your mom contacting you last week saying that your ‘father’ had wanted to meet up with you, you’re not going to lie and say that you didn’t hang up almost immediately and that you didn’t throw up afterwards because he’s been talking to her. That no good son of a bitch was talking to your mom and hadn’t you promised to always protect her? And why the fuck does he all the sudden care? He didn’t care when your mom was sobbing as he slammed the door, as you swore you could feel the house shake from the force, he didn’t care when you had to call home your big sister who was three states away to take care of you because mom won’t come out of her room, he didn’t care when you and your entire family suffered for two years before finally getting back on their feet so why now? Because he finally heard you were accepted to some fancy, prestigious space school?

You were once again pulled from these thoughts as the teacher declared the end of the lesson and dismissing everyone. 

Your hurriedly stuffed your notebook and pencil in your bag and dipped out of the room, heading towards the student dorms, thankful that the school day was over. You never had considered it lucky to have your dorms so close to the school buildings until now, you didn’t have to trek across a giant field in order to get to your room and that was a blessing since all you wanted to do right now is lay down. Matter of fact, that’s all you’ve really wanted to do this past week. You wonder if you could get away with calling in sick the rest of the week considering AP testing is going on all week and next, meaning that none of your teachers are teaching now, since you have all AP classes and you are not taking any of the tests to all of your teacher's dismay and shock. You’re here on scholarship, good enough test scores to get in on a full ride, and second rank in your class to keep everything paid for, did they really think you had a spare 768 dollars lying around to pay for all of your AP tests? No.

You were lucky enough not to encounter any of your classmates that wanted to talk, besides one of your roommates, Pidge, who just threw a quick ‘Hey’ before running off without a reply from you. You think to yourself that they’re running away from the dorms, not towards them, but you’d learned your freshman year, when you first roomed with him to just not question him anymore. You arrived at the dorm almost on the verge of an aneurysm from thinking too hard, as you scanned your hand to unlock it. You can’t help but feel the best kind of relief when you stumbled forward, landing on your bed as the door closed behind you. However, the momentary relief was over as you heard the door open and Hunk’s voice call out. You’d somehow almost forgot that Hunk was also your roommate. 

“Dude, you’ve been like this all week, there has to be some reason as to why you keep moping around or why you keep zoning out with this sad look on your face. You know you look like a kicked puppy when you’re sad and jesus I just can’t take how sad you look all the time, just tell me, I’m here you know?” 

You know. You know he’s here but you just can’t find it in yourself to burden him with your problems. Telling him what been swirling in your brain last week would be like dropping a fratetrain on him while there’s already a bus of problems he’s dealing with himself. You’d rather spare others from your problems and let yourself drown alone. You thought you could take on the world alone.


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> eh, I'm surprised I managed to spew this out. I'm trying my best to keep the chapter less than 2,000 words because I feel like the less I try and force myself to write, the more I want to continue.

You had decided that you needed air more than you needed to lay down. Or maybe you just lied to get away from Hunk’s persistent prying. It was all in good nature but you can’t handle it all right now. You know he’s there when you need him but you keep telling yourself that no, you don’t need him. You don’t need anyone. But you do, you really do but you’d rather keep lying to yourself to save other people the trouble.

Sneaking out past curfew has become a second nature to you, you’ve been doing it since freshman year and all the time you got caught, you learned from so doing it now is easier than a piece of cake. You have all the staff’s rotation schedules memorized and you know the layout of the school like the back of your hand. Besides, the destination you have in mind isn’t even the hardest to get to and it’s not like you’re doing anything bad, you could probably list ten things that are against the school policy that student are doing in their dorms; you just want to sit on the roof for a while. 

You manage to make it to the stairs leading up to the rood with only one close call; some teacher who decided they wanted something from a vending machine right as another rotation was happening. You were lucky that there was a quick place to hide in but, what you weren’t lucky about was that it was a trashcan that had not been emptied yet. Gross.

The descent of the stairs was nothing but agonizing as your tired body protested against every step up, you wonder if you even want to try to make it back to your dorm later. Maybe you’ll try falling asleep in a nearby classroom and hope you wake up before the teacher shows up. When you finally stepped out onto the roof, you had not expected it to be this warm, you probably should’ve discarded your uniform’s jacket before coming up here. Briefly looking around, you find that someone else is sitting on the edge of the roof. You think to yourself that maybe you should go back to your dorm, obviously this is a sign to get you to go back and confide in Hunk because this person probably wants to be alone and you don’t want to intrude because they were there first.

Before you can decide what to do, the person turns around and looks at you dead on. You completely freeze, feeling like an asshole for interrupting this poor person’s peace and quiet. You don’t know how long you stand there not moving, you kinda hope that maybe with the lack of movement and how dark it is up on the roof that they can’t see you but that hope is gone when they speak.

“You know, for some reason I expected you to be someone else but maybe I’m just going crazy, hoping that it’s him.” He turned back around, not saying anything further. You’re confused by what he said, also very intrigued. Why would he be going crazy hoping someone else would show up? You don’t know, you also would feel way too invasive to ask a total stranger about something so personal. Well, at least you think it’s personal. You also don’t know if that’s your queue to leave so you stand there, now with your arms hanging at your side confused.

You decide that maybe you should leave him alone so you turn around and open the door but once again his voice stops you.

“I didn’t say leave now did I idiot?” Wow did he have a way with words.

“Who do you think you’re calling an idiot? I’d watch your mouth if I were you cause all it’d take is one push and you’ll go ‘splat’ on the concrete.” You’re maybe two minutes into this conversation and yet you’ve already threatened the guy. This is why you only have two friends, and one of them won’t even call you their friend to other people. He made a noise that was a huff or maybe a small laugh and continued on.

“Try me.” Oh boy were you two seconds away from ‘trying him’ as you made your way to him. You were almost going to make another comment when you were less than two feet from him before you noticed how red his eyes were. Was he crying before you came up here?

“Holy shit, dude are you okay?” From how he was talking to you, you would not have guessed that he had probably been crying seconds prior. 

“Yeah, maybe, I haven’t figured it out yet. How about you? Never meet a soul who comes up to a roof in the middle of the night when they’re not said.” What kind of vague shit…? 

“Not really but I asked you first.”

“Fine whatever, if I tell you what’s bugging me, you’ll tell me what’s bugging you and then we both get something off our chests and then we go on like we usually do and not talk to each other. Deal?”

“Don’t you have friends you can talk to about this?”

“Not anymore, that’s the problem. What about you? Where’s your friends to talk to?”

“In their dorms, I’ve been ignoring their requests for me to tell them what’s wrong. They’re both way too busy to play therapist with me, finals and shit.” You have no idea what’s making it so easy to talk to him but everything seems to want to pour out of you. Maybe his idea isn’t that bad. 

“Why aren’t you studying for finals?”

“I’m taking all AP classes and I’m not taking the AP tests, just a standard final exam for each class which won’t take a genesis to ace.”

“Why aren’t you taking the AP exams? That’s kinda like wasting taking such a high level class.” You can’t help but laugh through your response to the question.

“I’m poor, man.” For some reason, statements like that just elicit laughter from you despite the severity of it. His response just made you laugh even harder.

“Shit dude, me too.” Even he was laughing by the end of it. “Now, you gonna keep being a self depreciating dick or are you gonna tell me what’s wrong?”

“Maybe if you’d stop insulting me I would.” 

“You’re easy to goad and you make it easy to insult you.”

“I am NOT easy to insult.”

“You’re avoiding telling me.” 

“Am not!” He just gave me a pointed look and gestured for me to sit down next to him. “If I sit down, you have to promise not to push me off the roof.”

“Dude, you just threatened to push me off like two minutes ago, I should be making you promise me.”

“Touche”

“Avoiding it.” He was 100 percent correct in the fact that you were avoiding it. Reluctantly sitting down next to him, you still stay quiet. You know that he won’t judge you, and there’s really nothing to judge you on but you were still wary of this stranger’s opinion of you. You really need to talk to someone about this though, what better than a complete stranger who could not have any proper bias on you. You begin, not giving another thought to reluctantcy.

“So like, I got this vivid flashback, to when I was six or seven when my dad left my mom and my mom sat me in her lap and told me I needed to be strong and the only reason it’s coming back is because my mom had called me a week ago to tell me that my dad wants to see me after so long and it hurts a lot because all I can think of is the week that my sister had to come home a take care of me because my mom wouldn’t leave her room. It’s like so fucked up that ten years after hurting my family he can suddenly just want to see me again? And then he was talking to my mom and I never wanted him to be able to talk to her ever again because he doesn’t deserve to ever talk to her after what he did.” Though you wish spilling your heart out wouldn’t be accompanied by spilling tears but sometimes they go hand in hand. You brought your hands up to your face, brushing away the fallen tears into your jacket sleeve and fell back, just so you were laying on the roof with your feet hanging off.

Another thing you had not expected this night, was when the stranger had laid down right next to you, his shoulder pressed right up against yours, a small way of comforting you as you held yourself back from sobbing. You continued to cry while he spoke.

“Maybe, have you thought, that the situation now isn’t causing this emotional stress, that maybe you’re just realizing how painful the situation back then was and it’s only affecting you now? I know, when a lot of kids see their parents separate at such a young age, they don’t understand what’s happening so when they understand, that’s when it really hits you. Do you blame yourself for it? Be honest.” You really don’t know if you ever flat out blamed yourself for it but you remember trying to connect the dots as to why it happened. Your mom and dad never fought, they never yelled at each other, you never recalled any signs of them being unhappy but, you remember every time your dad was ever cold to you, you remember him never treating any of your other siblings like this, you remember being the only child of theirs living at home at the time but maybe that’s all in your head. Every time you talked to your older sister or older brother they said that’s how dad has always been but you never wanted to believe them, you just wanted to feel sorry for yourself. 

“Sometimes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BTW the next chapter will focus around this "stranger's" story also it's pretty obvious who it is though lmao.


	3. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So like school happens on monday for me, I'm like highkey dying, but it is my last year so I just gotta power through it, I'm actually hoping to write more when school starts cause I always need a way to procrastinate my work. Sorry bout the late chapter though, I've had major writing block.

Maybe you are as stupid as this guy and everyone you have ever meet have told you. This guy had completely pulled out the story from you faster than anyone has ever gotten you to talk about something personal and wasn’t he supposed to tell you what was wrong with him first? This absolute fuckery. You have half a mind to just up and leave but curiosity has the best of you.

“It’s understandable. I blame myself for things all the time, I like to feel sorry for myself and I like to feel important. When you blame yourself, you’re basically saying you were important enough to the situation that you greatly affected it. I don’t feel like I’m important ever so I blame myself so I can.”

You feel like that’s the saddest thing that someone has ever said. How can someone just not feel important?

“How do you not feel important? Don’t you have friends or family? They probably think you’re pretty damn important.”

“Don’t have friends anymore.”

“What about your parents?”

“I don’t have parents.”

“What do you mean you don’t have parents? Everyone does.”

“Not me. They fucked off when I was three, barely remember them, I’ve been jumping around foster homes up until I started school here.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, there’s nothing for you to feel sorry about. It’s not your fault my parents ditched me.”

“But do you think it’s my fault that my dad ditched me.”

“No. that’s not your fault either. The world doesn’t revolve around you. Whence you figure that out, life makes a lot more sense. Just because things happen doesn’t mean it’s always your fault. People are all just shitty. They all suck.”

“Do you think I suck?”

“Maybe you can find out the answer to that when I get to know you better.”

“You actually want to talk to me more after this?”

“Of course, why not?”

“Most people ignore me after they realize I’m annoying. I apparently can’t keep my mouth shut.”

“Well I guess I’m a bit hard to annoy then aren’t I? My name is Keith by the way.”

“Mine’s Lance and you never really said why you’re up here.”

“Oh yeah, completely forgot about that.” This guy, ‘Keith’ now, is a real fucking case is he not. You can’t figure out if he’s really fucking smart, spewing out wisdom like that and playing dumb with not remembering to uphold his promise or if he’s really fucking dumb with just bouts of good advice, you feel entitled to stick around to find out. Maybe he’ll make good company, who knows? You do know however, that you want to meet him in the mornings perhaps. You don’t voice this desire to him, considering half the people who you’ve expressed a want to meet again tend to brush you off and never talk to you again. “Well, you know the Kerberos Mission, my brother was the pilot. I’ve been pretty down since then.”

“You’re brothers with Shiro?1” You can’t help but yell with excitement. Right now you’re laying with someone who’s been within close quarters with the man you’ve been hero worshipping since you started here freshman year. Though you feel really terrible for Keith, the Kerberos Mission had been a huge letdown for everyone at the Garrison. The teachers mourning a the loss of three great people, students no longer saying their school with pride but Keith, your can’t even begin to imagine what he’s going through, what any of the families are going through. 

“Well kinda, foster siblings really, he was my last foster parents biological son, he was really the only reason I applied to this school, I always dreamt of going to space but for some reason, it was never a reality for me. Now all I can think of is just stealing one of the Garrisons crafts and taking off, going looking for him. Don’t tell anyone I said that.” You mockingly crossed your heart, promising that his secret was safe with you but you understand that completely.

You remember one time Pidge, Hunk, and you were goofing around during lunch when you expressed something similar. You were sad about something and expressed the want to take a craft just to escape earth for a while. Little to your luck, or lack of therefore, Iverson was standing near you. You had a detention hanging over you, a phone call from your mom pretending to yell at you- she thought it was insane that this was something you could get in trouble for and had just yelled about the family dog in Spanish til she thought it was good enough, the dog had ripped through another blanket of hers- a five page report on what discipline in and a week long group ban from the simulator. The instructors were fucking ridiculous sometimes. 

“Keep this between you and me, but I don’t think some crew mistake happened. Shiro was top of his class by a huge margin, he was with one of the best commanders at the time and he swore by the engineers abilities, I don’t believe for a second anything that the Garrison is telling us about the mission.” You kind of just went with the flow of everything here, if you were told something you believed it so you hadn’t really questioned much about the mission, then again it hadn’t really hit personal for you.

“What do you think happened then?” 

“I don’t know, but I will find out.” You’re pretty much already rooting for this kid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since the end is kinda rushed, if there's any mistakes please do tell!


End file.
